The 58 S.C. liquor wholesalers with lucrative monopolies to sell minibottles to drinking establishments may lobby voters to protect their golden goose on Election Day. As The Sun News reported last week, a marketing research firm is surveying wholesalers to determine whether to form a "Palmetto Hospitality Association" to campaign for a no vote on a Nov. 2 proposal to remove the minibottle mandate from the S.C. Constitution.

Even if they mount such an effort and voters - as they should - end the mandate anyway, the fight to allow drinking establishments to free-pour drinks from liter bottles would not be over. The wholesalers and distributors have already made clear they'll push the 2005 S.C. General Assembly not to disturb the law allowing drinks to be sold only from minibottles.

It is easy to understand their enthusiasm for the status quo. If voters end the mandate and legislators follow voters' wishes by legalizing free-pour, the distributors and wholesalers will have to adjust the way they do business.

They would still be in a position to profit handsomely from the distribution and sale of large bottles to bars and restaurants. But the wholesalers likely would have to lay in large fleets of delivery trucks. It's unimaginable that any reform would continue to require bar and restaurant owners to fetch their liquor from wholesalers, as they must do now.

The wholesalers also would make proportionally less money for liquor sold in liter bottles. According to list prices in catalogs, minibottles cost about 75 percent more than a comparable amount of liquor in large bottles.

Small wonder, then, that wholesalers see a change in the law as an unfair squeeze on their business. But their prosperity the past 30 years is a pleasant - for them - side effect of a social attitude that no longer exists. In 1974, S.C. anti-drinking forces had great power. Now, drinking in bars and restaurants is not a political issue for most residents - though some don't like it.

The "social" arguments that the liquor establishment makes for retaining the minibottle mandate, and for sticking with current law if the mandate falls Nov. 2, are bogus. A per-drink tax collected at bars and restaurants would more than make up for the per-bottle tax that retailers pay on minibottles.

And it is unlikely that the widespread cheating of customers via free-pour that they predict would come to pass. Most restaurant and bar patrons are smart enough to know if bartenders are pouring thin drinks or spiking premium liquor bottles with cheaper substitutes.

The end of the minibottle would result in less alcohol consumption, fewer alcohol-related car wrecks and better quality multiple-liquor drinks at bars and restaurants. Legalization also would result in widespread recycling of large-liquor bottles; minibottles generally don't get recycled because they clog glass-crushing machines. As well, free-pour would strengthen the bottom line of the hospitality industry, the linchpin of the S.C. economy.

Voters in Horry and Georgetown counties, then, should not fall prey to any dire-consequences ads that a deceptively named "Palmetto Hospitality Association" would run, should wholesalers decide to campaign. Residents should vote yes to end the minibottle mandate, then pressure legislators to enact free-pour laws. The result will be a safer state with a chance at greater prosperity.